$2 Florida Keys Sea Heritage Journal VOL. 18 NO. 4 SUMMER 2008 USS SHARK OFFICIAL QUARTERLY PUBLICATION OF THE KEY WEST MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY FUTURE ADMIRAL COMMANDED SCHOONER IN KEYS DURING SECOND SEMINOLE WAR by John Viele One of the strangest chapters in American naval history was written in South Florida and the Keys during the Second Seminole War (1836- 1842). Naval officers led sailors, marines, revenue marines, and sometimes soldiers in operations against the Seminole Indians in the Keys and the Everglades. One of these naval officers was Passed Midshipman John Rodgers. (A passed midshipman was one who had passed the examination for lieutenant but was waiting for a vacancy in order to be promoted.) John Rodgers was the son of Commodore John Rodgers, the Navy’s senior officer. (see Sea Heritage Journal Vol. 17, No. 3, Spring 2007 re the Commodore’s visit to Key West in 1823). Passed Midshipman Rodgers was 26 years old when he received orders in November 1839 to take command of the schooner Wave at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. His orders directed him to prepare her for action against the Seminole Indians in South Florida and the Keys. Wave was a 65-foot, pilot-boat Commander John Rogers about 1861. Photo credit: Monroe County Library. schooner, armed with a single long gun, and manned by a crew of six five foot boat Obviously pleased the beautiful tapering of her run, officers and forty men. Picture with his new command, Rodgers the rich fullness of her beam, and if you can, forty-six men trying described her with these words, “. the delicate roundness of the waist to find space to sleep on a sixty- . the graceful swell of her bow, (Continued on page 3) SOCIETY NEWS AND NOTES By Tom Hambright The Hotel on Front Street near Duval Street before the Great Fire of 1886. Photo credit: New York Public Library. The Florida Keys Sea Heritage Journal is published quarterly. Subscription is available through membership. Copyright 2008 by the Key West Maritime Historical Society of the Florida Keys, Inc. The art on the masthead, the USS Shark, was drawn by Bill Muir. Editor: Lynda Hambright The Custom House on Clinton Square before the current red brick Custom House Production:Tom Hambright was built in the 1890’s. This building is now at 124 Duval Street. Photo credit: New York Public Library. Letters and articles are welcome. The new Internet age has given which are there full text if you have Please write to: Editor, Florida Keys us more information than we can time to do that much reading. Sea Heritage Journal, KWMHS, P.O. digest. The problem has become Library of Congress’s American Box 695, Key West, FL 33041. what is real and what is myth. I Memory site is one of the best was asked to prepare a list of web American History site in the web Key West Maritime Historical Society sites for educators so they could http://www.loc.gov/. Board of Directors find reliable information about The Florida Memory site does Key West with some original and the same for Florida History, http: President: Edward J.Little,Jr. primary documents. Of course the //www.floridamemory.com/. Vice President: Bill Verge first sites I recommended was our The Florida Historical Society Secretary: Corey Malcom site http://keywestmaritime.org/ has all the Florida Historical Treasurer: Tom Hambright and of course next is the Library Quarterly on their site in full text, site http://www.keyslibraries.org. http://.florida-historical-soc.org/. Andrea Comstock The Library site has a pathfinder on The Historical Association of George Craig the home page that will take you to South Florida has their annual Bill Grosscup all the material we have up and we journal Tequesta on the site in full Tom Hambright plan to add much more over the next text, http://hmsf.org/. Mary Haffenreffer John Jones year. Check out the following. These are a few of these are a Sheri Lohr Google. If you have not used few of the sites I have found items Don Lowe try Google books. Do the advance about Key West. The above stereo Louis Maglio search for full view only. The last views of Key West were found on Julie McEnroe search I did using the exact phase the New York Public Library site, Bill Verge “Key West” I got 1,906 books, http://digitalgallery.nypl.org John Viele New Members Ervin and Sandy Higgs, Key West 2 - FLORIDA KEYS SEA HERITAGE JOURNAL - SUMMER 2008 (Rogers from page 1) Indians in the Keys in the past three years, and with naval forces nearby, Note: The following information stamped the Wave a very Venus.” they had relaxed their guard and is taken from Wave’s original log for When Wave was ready for sea disbanded the militia. the period January 11, 1840 through on January 13, 1840, Rodgers got Rodgers sent the Wave’s June 3, 1840. The log was found in underway for Florida. Arriving at carpenters and sailmakers ashore the National Archives, and, because St. Augustine eight days later, he on Tea Table to begin building a it was an original document, had to reported to Lt. McLaughlin, captain new mainmast, using a spar and be copied by hand. of the 150-ton schooner Flirt, and materials obtained from Indian In the first month at Tea Table, overall commander of naval forces Key. Six weeks later, her crewmen Rodgers concentrated on training in South Florida and the Keys. The floated the new mast alongside and, his crew to handle small arms and official title of these forces was using a sheer leg borrowed from canoes. Each day, one or more of the the Expedition for Suppression of Indian Key, stepped it in place. three divisions of the crew was sent Indian Hostilities, but it soon came Examination of the base of the old ashore to learn the skills they would to be called the “Mosquito Fleet.” mainmast showed that iron spikes, need to make their way through On his way south, McLaughlin driven in to secure the saddle of the Everglades in canoes, and to had put in at Charleston to pick up the main boom, had seriously attack or defend themselves against canoes and now, at St. Augustine, weakened the mast. Rodgers was Seminole warriors. Crewmen was loading several flat-bottom held blameless for the accident, and, remaining on board kept busy with boats that he had ordered. in fact, was praised by the Secretary scraping spars, painting, assisting in The two schooners got underway of the Navy for his “seamanlike repairs, scrubbing hammocks and in company on a course for the Keys, skill and conduct” in bringing his clothes, taking on water from Indian but on January 23, a severe storm crippled vessel safely to Tea Table Key, loading supplies, and taking on struck, breaking Wave’s mainmast Key. Not long after arriving there, provisions. Their menu featured salt at the deck and sending it overboard. Rodgers received notice of his pork and beef, beans, bread, cheese, Rodgers ordered the long gun fired promotion to lieutenant. sour crout, rice, vinegar, pickles, to signal McLaughlin, but it was not The Mosquito Fleet at that time molasses, and raisins, with a daily heard, and Flirt disappeared over consisted of the schooners Flirt, ration of whiskey. The only fresh the horizon. After Wave’s crewmen Wave, and Otsego; five twenty- food was an occasional serving had cleared away the wreckage, oared, single-masted gun barges; of turtle. On Sundays, unless they unbent the foresail, reinforced and about sixty dugout canoes and operations precluded it, the crew the foremast’s standing rigging, and flat-bottom boats ranging in size mustered at quarters for inspection set a squaresail on the foremast. from ten to forty feet. The Army and then attended divine services. Under this jury rig, Wave sailed command in Florida suspected that The only recreation mentioned in on and rejoined Flirt off Cooley’s Cuban fishermen who came to the the log was one day’s liberty in Key Mill (Fort Lauderdale today). After Keys to fish were supplying arms and West in mid April. a brief stop at Key Biscayne, the two ammunition to the Indians. To stop Based on the number and severity schooners anchored at Tea Table them, McLaughlin established two of the punishments recorded in the Key which was to be their base of surveillance barriers. He directed log, Lt. Rodgers’ guiding principle operations. the schooners to patrol along the must have been: “Spare the lash and Nearby Indian Key, just a mile reef and the barges to patrol along you’ll spoil the tar.” In Wave’s first away, was a small but thriving port the mainland. He then made plans four months in the Keys, nine men for wrecking, fishing, and turtling to penetrate the Everglades in the were triced up to the shrouds and vessels, and possessed many of the canoes to locate Indian villages, lashed with the cat-of-nine-tails, supplies the squadron would need, capture the Indian women and most of them for being drunk. Navy including large stores of fresh water. children, and destroy their villages regulations at the time limited the When the Seminoles went on the and crops. He reasoned that since number of lashes a commanding warpath in 1836, the residents of previous attempts had penetrated officer could award to twelve for Indian Key, fearful of an attack, had the Everglades from the east coast, any single offense. Rodgers either formed a small militia and mounted there would be a better chance of ignored the regulation or got around cannon around the island to protect surprise if his forces entered by way it by specifying additional offenses.